Wildflower Sun
by Toraptor
Summary: Madara was sick. Whether he was sick of mind and body had yet to be determined. Hashirama, at least, was definitely trying to drive him insane.


_**Wildflower Sun**_

* * *

The dry air was doing nothing for Madara's lungs, but he was outside anyway, as though the crisp breeze could snatch away his illness. It didn't, and within the hour he was shivering in the center of a wide golden field, a break in an otherwise dense forest.

Exhaustion had numbed the hesitation he would have felt at the sticks and moist soil, dragging him down to the field and laying him on grasses a little too coarse for comfort. He stared up at crystal clear blue sky with the drifting, flyaway feeling that he suspected was like dying. It wasn't so terrible like that, thoughts subdued, demure-he hoped his brothers felt like that, when they died.

A gust of wind blew through the field and the grasses felt like angel wings. His skin prickled with a chill, despite the flushness of his cheeks, and he turned to his side. He curled up, eyes sliding closed, and pretended he was back in the tent. He would have preferred his bedroll.

Briefly, he wondered if Izuna was looking for him—if Tajima noticed he was missing.

His father had looked so disappointed lately. It was not a look Madara was used to, but he could hardly help it. With the webs in his lungs, the ghost whispering in his skull, and the way his thoughts and actions seemed to stick—_stick, stick, stick_—lately, so slow and burdened, it was a miracle he functioned at all.

A churning hot furnace in his body tried to bargain, to convince, that he was freezing to death in the relatively placid autumn day. He moved his arms over his chest, hyperaware of his own thundering heartbeat. It was disconcerting enough that he tried to sit up, only for the world to tilt sharply. For all he jarringly did not move, his body was convinced everything was going backwards, backwards, further back—

He was not so functional at the moment.

The ground had soldered itself to his back. He could no more pick himself up, than he could force the world off its axis, or regain his equilibrium. It forced him to stare up at the sky, at the wisps of clouds that were forming, the tiny droplet of leftover rainfall sliding down a golden strand of grass. He longed to dissipate away with the wind as a sledgehammer slammed into his gut, left nausea in its wake, purpling darkness creeping at the edges of his vision.

His face was curiously numb. He blinked, gasped in a breath, gagged.

Nothing came up, thankfully. He couldn't turn over and he didn't want to drown in his own bodily fluids.

He coughed and lightning struck his heart, a sideways flutter, a jolt that ran down to his fingers. It made tears sting his eyes, a crawling tenseness in his chest that was either death, or sheer, undulated panic.

There was a subterranean rattle in the earth by his ear. He called out for Izuna, voice thick and unrecognizable. The metal song of clanging kunai sliced through the air in response.

Madara scrabbled for purchase on the ground, as the world spun around him and begged that he stay down_. Stay down, stay down, stay down_. His arms buckled, even as he dragged his legs under him.

"I have never been so sick in my life," Madara rasped hoarsely, and even talking was a labor of effort. His throat was swallowed glass, his stomach a dangerous, churning thing.

A burst of killing intent pierced through the fog in his head. He reached for a kunai as the ghost in his skull rattled the bars and _screamed_, pulled left and right and up and down—fire jutsu, sword, hide, run—a hundred ways he could survive and a short dozen ways he could die, unless whoever was in the field was the creative sort. Then, the list was endless.

Using chakra wasn't the best of ideas for one in his condition, but he didn't trust his vision for aiming kunai, or his physical strength for the sword—except he didn't have a sword on him. Anyone else would have frozen, but Madara was a shinobi, born and bred and raised for war, and even sickened and confused, that never changed. He forwent the sword he, apparently, didn't have—when had he lost it?—and dodged—

Nothing was there. He skidded to a halt, launched himself backward to avoid where the real attacker was, and tried to wrap the slippery tendrils of his brain around the fact the attack had disappeared. Or, it had never existed.

There was a cry, a familiar voice that sent a burst of sunspots through Madara's stomach, and an arm wound around his waist, even as he was forming hand signs for that fire jutsu.

He gaped, open mouthed in horror, as the forest swallowed them. It closed around them, a bristly maw blocking out the blue sky. Shrieks filled the field-which wasn't much of a field anymore—before they were abruptly shut short.

"What are you doing out here?"

Despite the trees steadily knitting themselves overhead, thoroughly blocking out any daylight, he could inexplicably still see clearly. He couldn't bring himself to puzzle it out, caught in a haze. He didn't trust himself not to blurt the first thing on his mind, and that train of thought could only lead somewhere particularly embarrassing.

Hashirama was _glowing_, like a second sun, and that explained why he could see without daylight.

He would eat his own liver before he said that out loud.

"Madara?"

The ghost in Madara's head stopped throwing itself at the bars. It coiled around his brain, coated in scales, and Hashirama must have been a snake charmer, because it always happened when he was in the area.

"How are you here?" said Madara, a lot quieter than he intended. He was so used to regulating his voice for the wild cacophony of dreams that always felt a little too real, and realized he'd probably been _whispering_ to everyone for the better part of—of _how long?_—a long time. He tried to infuse a little strength into his tone as he added, "And I was taking a nap. That was obvious."

"A nap," Hashirama echoed, a hair away from disbelieving. His hands were hovering inches from Madara's arms, as though waiting for him to keel over. His lack of faith in Madara's ability to _stand_ was enough for him to pointedly push away. "Be careful—"

"I am perfectly capable of—of standing," said Madara, stumbling halfway through his sentence. He was already flushed from a fever, couldn't really grow redder, but his face made a _goddamn_ good effort. Dampness was gathering his nose, threatening a downpour that would leave him disgraced for generations. Worse still, he just _knew_ that even if he could blow it, _nothing would come out_. His nose was so swollen that it felt as though something had exploded in his sinuses. Despite the growing fear of a nasal meltdown, he gathered up his dignity around him. "You should not even be here."

Hashirama gave a laugh, though it was a touch more aggravated than his usual laughs. It made something cold and uncertain nestle in Madara's gut, and he _hated_ it.

"You're three miles into Senju territory," said Hashirama, chuckling incredulously. "A couple Kaguya were spotted crossing the border and I came to deal with it. If _anyone else_ had come—do you realize what could have happened—"

He broke off, taking a deep breath.

"Are you hurt?" he asked, stepping closer to look him over, regardless. "You look feverish. Is there an illness going through your clan?"

"No," said Madara, and then sneezed. Violently.

He groaned, covering his face, legs buckling under him. There was no point anymore—dignity was dead and pride was lost.

A cloth was pressed to his face, he was eased back with a broad hand against his chest. Soft moss cushioned him, which shouldn't have come as the surprise it did. Madara might have thrown Hashirama to the ground and tossed some bandages on his head, if their positions were reversed. Hashirama was not Madara.

It was easy to mistake Madara as the stubborn one. He was ever and always avoiding Hashirama's questions, his plaintive looks across the battlefield. He ignored the way his stomach flipped, as though the ground dropped under his feet, as Hashirama barred his teeth in a grin whenever he tried a new technique. They both enjoyed their fights, but it Madara who refused to meet in lulls between fights, never replied to untitled letters, who kept silent when his father mentioned another clash with the Senju.

Madara was stubborn, but it was Hashirama who never stopped pursuing. It was Hashirama who still sent letters, even after three years of them no longer being friends. He was the one who whispered in battles—_"It could be different. We don't have to fight. Imagine the future. It'll be wonderful."_—and chased after the Uchiha for every inch that Madara wanted to move them far, far away.

When he was clan head, he would move the Uchiha away. The ghost stirred at the thought, but he shoved it back down in its cell. He didn't care for its worries, its warnings. Hashirama's dream would not work, but if he could agree on one thing, it was that the deaths had gone on _long enough_.

Moving away wasn't so terrible of an idea.

Hashirama's lips thinned into a line.

"You don't need the Uchiha," groused Madara drowsily, every blink threatening to pull him into unconsciousness. "Make a village with the Uzumaki or something."

It was as though the ghost seeped from his skull and tainted his bones, sided with his illness. He was plunged into a bout of nausea that made his stomach demonic. His went brain fuzzy, his mouth watering. A chain wrapped around his chest and _squeezed_, punished him for his words.

However, even as he struggled to sit up, Hashirama was resting glowing hands on his stomach. Then, he was traveling upward, frowning in an equal mixture of worry and displeasure. He didn't like Madara's responses—he never did, and yet he kept asking for the same thing.

Blessed numbness steeped through his torso. His breath came a little easier.

"You have pneumonia," said Hashirama, disapproving, as though Madara _asked_ to get sick—he scowled on reflex. "Is your clan out of medicines?"

"We aren't rich," said Madara, tilting his head back. He wanted to gather more anger, but he was so utterly drained of energy, it was impossible. His bones were liquified, skin full of wet sand. "I just need to sleep."

"D'you think your clan will find it strange if you go home with medicine?" said Hashirama, even as he pressed several pouches into Madara's limp hands.

Madara pushed them away. "Yes, they will. There are no medicine men living in trees."

"Maybe you found them on a dead body," said Hashirama, insistently handing them back.

"_Your_ dead body, maybe," said Madara, drawing a snort from Hashirama. He wasn't trying to be funny, but that never seemed to matter. "Stop that—I _cannot_ just show up with several weeks' worth of medicines and no explanation—"

"Hasn't your clan ever heard the idiom 'Don't look a gift horse in the mouth?'" said Hashirama, falling just short of whining. He pushed sweaty raven locks off Madara's flushed forehead. "Look at you. You're _melting_."

"Thanks, asshole."

Hashirama beamed. "You're welcome."

A tortured creak of wood broke through the silence that fell over them. Madara watched, nonplussed, as walls crawled up around them. Giant windows were left open, resembling wide eyes in the side of a house that had sprouted from the ground. There were vines clinging to the walls, bursting full of ripened grapes; tiny flowers like miniature roses were sprouting at their feet. It was a strange clash of civilization and wild nature, and only Hashirama was capable of something so unorthodox.

He was also one of the few beings alive, Madara was sure, who _enjoyed_ it—going off the wide grin on his face. A couple curling tendrils of vines reached down the ceiling, dangerously close to Madara's bed of moss.

"They're saying hello!"

"They're _plants_."

Hashirama was absolutely, steadfastly insistent the plants were greeting them. Seeing as he was the one making the grow, the one whose connection to nature and the natural chakras of the world was something new and old and soul-deep, all at once, arguing with him about it was probably foolish. Madara would never, ever claim to be a man of wisdom.

As the drone of excited chatter wore on, Hashirama's voice pitching toward tedium to Madara's weary ears, warped faces played around his mind. He focused on the curve of Hashirama's lips, darted to his hazel eyes. He could never tell if they were brown, or gold, or green, or kaleidoscopic mix of them all. His mind focused on _fractured_ as he tried to piece together Hashirama's eyes into something that made sense, someone who wasn't always discontented, always wanted more, who glowed with cheer despite it all.

It was never good enough. Whether for Madara, or Hashirama, he wasn't sure. His breath had locked in his lungs with the rattle of the cages in his mind, and Hashirama abandoned whatever he was talking about—probably something to do with the village—to refocus his attention to Madara's chest.

Madara followed the warm trail of hands on his sternum, kept the memory of heat trapped in his skin, with the determination of a man drowning at sea. Those hands had healed a life for every one he'd taken. They were nicked and scarred, like any shinobi's hands, starkly bronze against Madara's pale skin.

When they stood together, Hashirama glowed. He didn't literally glow, as in with the power of the demigod he probably secretly was (even if he didn't know), but he was _alive_. Alive, in the way the sun was, bringing colors to the world and forests to life. Trees pushed and fought for sunlight. And when the sun was gone, when the sky darkened, the scraps of leftover light was given to the moon.

Pale and cold. When the moon was full, it blotted out the glitter of the stars. It made the sky black and void.

That was how Madara felt, standing by Hashirama. When Hashirama was at his greatest, he enhanced the beauty that was already there, while Madara stole it away. Only the strongest lights survived around him.

(_Until they didn't anymore_.)

Hands had traveled up his neck, to his head, and were cradling his temples. The ghost lurched back, making itself small as possible in Madara's head, and for once he wasn't haunted by the image of his brother's corpse.

A sigh escaped him.

Hashirama worked with practiced diligence. He was worried—Madara could tell by the way the moss had grown thicker, the vines winding around his biceps, as though nature could keep him physically anchored to life—and that was probably a good sign Madara should have been worried, too. A healer like Hashirama didn't get _worried_ over minor illnesses.

But, he was floating again. His mind was blessedly numbed and his thoughts were drifting away from him in bubbles. Underwater, the world was not so overwhelming. Everything was muted and dulled. He could handle the world from underwater.

A paste that was cold and warm, that made his skin crawl, was rubbed into his chest. Frigid dampness wrapped around his forehead and soaked his hairline, battling the heat radiating off his face. He didn't remember closing his eyes, but they were crusted over, and it wasn't worth the effort to open them. The rumble of Hashirama's voice through the darkness was more comforting than any lullaby.

The first twangs of pain through his joints dragged him from the clouds. He was pulled to his pitifully, drearily mortal body by a cough that threatened to shake his bones apart. For every bit he knew it was _good_ he was conscious again, he regretted being conscious.

Sickness never failed to make him feel so frail, it was as though the illness was eating away at his limbs.

"You relapsed into walking pneumonia," Hashirama was saying, as Madara's eyes fluttered open for the first time in an unknown length of time. It couldn't be too long, or else they'd be hunted by someone, surely. Madara's clan wouldn't leave him to the forest for too long. "How long have you been sick?"

It was enough time that the memory of health was distant, more of a legend than anything that really existed. He'd become used to deliberate way he had to force his body to work at full capacity.

"I'll take that as a long time," sighed Hashirama, looking put-out, as he pulled up a thin covering Madara hadn't had the last time he was conscious.

He almost growled when he saw the Senju kanji embroidering. It was Hashirama's haori, draped over Madara's body to keep him warm. About ten percent of his brain noted that his fever must have gone down, if Hashirama was giving him a blanket, but the other ninety percent was looping over and over again that he had a _Senju_ haori on him. _Hashirama's_ haori.

_Get it off_, he thought, followed by, _Will he notice if it goes missing?_

He could probably cut out the Senju part and add it to his wardrobe somehow-but, no, that was pathetic. Madara wasn't even going to lie to himself: he could be pathetic, but he wasn't _that_ pathetic.

_He wanted the goddamn haori_.

"Do you think your father will be willing to negotiate a treaty if I offer land?" said Hashirama, leaning on his forearms on a nightstand that had sprouted up. It was lined in pretty camellias.

"My father doesn't negotiate with anyone," said Madara, "least of all the Senju."

His throat was still scratchy and dry, his voice was something the cat dragged in, and his head was pounding; but he felt—well, he felt like death warmed over, actually. He squinted at Hashirama through the darkness. He'd lit a candle on the opposite end of the house (where had he even gotten that?) and it sent flickering shadows over the walls. A couple new flower bushes had cropped up, showering the floor in pinks and reds.

"You making a communal garden?" he croaked.

Hashirama hummed in response. "Yeah, sure—anyway, do you think he'd accept bribe money?"

"I don't know," said Madara, tilting his head back and closing his eyes to stave off the way his head gave a particularly nasty throb.

Hashirama didn't seem to get the hint. Or, he was ignoring it. He was definitely ignoring it, Madara thought sourly.

"Er—how long do you think it'll take you to become clan head?"

Violent flashes of mountains of paperwork invaded Madara's head. He thought of complaints and crowds and expectant eyes_. "Do that,"_ and _"Don't do that_," and most of all_, "It wouldn't be too much an issue for the clan head to take care of this issue as soon as possible_." That didn't even begin to broach on the wide, bold _opinions_ of his clanmates. Everyone had an opinion. Everyone's opinion was the right one. No, he wasn't allowed to disagree with their opinion, and he'd really better think twice about challenging the Elders. They were old and that meant they knew better.

He groaned, turning his head away from Hashirama's emphatic looks. He was always so open and earnest, even as he casually asked Madara to change the entire world with him.

"Are you, ah, very attached to your father?"

"You are not killing my father," said Madara firmly. He couldn't believe he even had to stay that sentence. "Besides for the fact he's my _father_—and yes, he's an irredeemable asshole and I hate him, but—"

"I'm not seeing the reason not to stage an accident here."

"—if you're caught killing a clan head, the Uchiha will never trust you."

Hashirama blinked guilelessly. "So they _can_ come to trust me?"

"That is—That's not—"

It was too late. He was already leaning even closer, arms draped around the bed, pushing down the haori at Madara's sides. They were practically chest-to-chest as Hashirama _beamed_ down at him. His dark hair was soft against Madara's bare hands.

"What if we open trade negotiations between our clans before you're clan head, anyway?" said Hashirama, cheerfully ignoring the way Madara was choking on his tongue. "Even if your father turns us down, it may garner some support from other people in the clan."

"I—Yes, that would work—"

"And then, when you're clan head, it'll be a simple thing to suggest a ceasefire agreement, then build the village!"

"It's not that simple."

Hashirama didn't play fair, in game or battle, and it was never more apparent than the moment he slumped in, even _closer_ than before, mashing his face against Madara's sternum. He could also feel a toned chest against his stomach. It injected lightning into his veins, sent his stomach into acrobatics.

"You're going to get sick," said Madara, pushing against him in a last-ditch attempt to save his composure.

The laugh he received was not encouraging. "I've never gotten sick in my life!"

And, of course he hadn't. Of course. He was _Senju Hashirama_, and the power of mountains and valleys flowed in his blood. He was the southern heat that everyone flocked to in the winter months. Bacteria and viruses probably gave shrill little screams inches away from his skin and died.

"Get _off_ me!"

"You're so stubborn," said Hashirama, moping spectacularly. He gave Madara a wounded look, as though he wasn't the one holding Madara hostage while he was sick to discuss world peace.

"_I'm_ stubborn!?" Madara shrieked, righteous anger welling up inside him. "ME!?"

"You won't just agree to make a village with me," said Hashirama, talking with his chin prodding into Madara's chest, which made his crawl and tingle all at once. "Why would you want to keep fighting?"

"I _never said that_," said Madara, on the verge of hysterics. "How can you expect my clan to let go of generations of hate just—just like that? So soon? My brother made a joke about Senju skullduggery ornaments the other day—"

Hashirama picked himself up so quickly, Madara stammered to a halt. The hazel eyes, more of a golden-brown now, held his with the same sort of seriousness they did when they met on the battlefield.

His was quiet in the way people too often forgot he was capable. It was easy, when he seemed so much larger than life.

"Izuna," he said. "Your brother. Is he what's… making you hesitate?"

There were a thousand reasons. It was sneers on his clanmates' faces around bonfires, the deadly frenzy with which they battled, the twisted anger on their faces that transformed them into something inhuman. They were quick to jump to their blades. Maybe, in a decade or so, that would change. For now, there was a tumor festering in the hearts of all Uchiha that pushed them to _fight_. They would chew off their own legs before accepting help from a Senju. _Izuna_ would chew off his own legs, if he had to.

Izuna, who was fourteen and struggled up to Madara's shoulder height. He was still fighting to earn the impossible pride of their father, to meet the expectations of one who was never truly satisfied. There was an indominable loyalty to the concept of the Uchiha, the raging torrential god-fire that they all wanted to believe they were-when, in reality, they were only ever human.

Perhaps, he thought with a bitter knot in his gut, they were all a little insane. War had taken something in their brain and shattered it, and now they were running hot with untamed fury.

He closed his eyes to stop his mind going that way. He didn't want to see the pale face in his memory, the slight figure in a coffin, arms crossed over his chest. He didn't want to see the boy who was not so much Izuna's copy, as he was his rhyme, so similar and _different_. The ghost remembered empty houses and bloody streets.

A hand closed around his, a warm breath on his knuckles.

"I promise nothing will happen to him."

Madara yanked away, and he was no better than his clanmates. That same anger churned like digested poison in his gut.

"_Don't_ promise that. You can't _possibly_ know what will happen, so _don't even_—"

"Too late, I already promised," said Hashirama, snagging Madara's hand again and dragging it into his lap. It was horribly distracting. All he could think of was fingers on his and _warm, warm, warm_, rolling over him in a golden blanket— "I've made it clear that the clan is not to interfere with our battles. I'll do the same for your brother."

"That's—" It felt like cheating. "Isn't that—"

"We're shinobi," said Hashirama, with an air of exasperation that was entirely out of place, paired with his fond smile. "So, what else is in the way of our village?"

Madara sucked in a breath to swear at him, or maybe tell him to go away, but broke into a fit of coughing. He curled his shoulders in, as Hashirama rubbed circles into his back. His gaze was sympathetic, but unwavering.

"You are a _sadist_," he groaned, though he wasn't able to muster the heat he wanted. Worst still, he wasn't even too disappointed. "They all think you're some patron saint of morality, but I know better. You are _evil_."

Hashirama laughed, but tellingly didn't try to refute his statement. He hadn't let go of Madara's hand, lacing his fingers through Madara's smaller ones. The man really was a _giant_, he noted with the barest hint of jealousy. He'd sprouted up a good head over Madara.

"I'm over here, dying, and you're trying to negotiate a brand new _settlement_ for our clans, who are at _war_—"

A bark of genuine amusement escaped Hashirama, flinging his head back.

"You aren't _dying_. You just needed a little boost." He leaned his elbows against the bed of moss, staring at Madara unblinkingly. "But, we can get to the village, right?"

"Are you seriously trying to nag me into agreeing? Is that it?"

"Maybe—is it working?"

In the end, Hashirama was the mountains and valleys, and most of all he was the corrosive rivers between them. No one really stood a chance, once they were in his sights. Madara had been an object of his attention for a very long time.

"You are insane," Madara told him, as they stood side-by-side atop of the Hokage Monument, untold years later. "Just so you know. Insane."

Hashirama had wrapped an arm around his shoulders in a way he probably thought was slick. "I wasn't the only person involved in making the village, you know."

"No, but I wasn't the one who hunted me down across the goddamn continent to make it happen."

"I didn't go _that_ far," said Hashirama.

"Yes," said Madara, clearly remembering the time he'd taken the clan far into the mountains skirting what had become Kumogakure no Sato, and Hashirama had popped out of a cropping of rocks to talk about world peace. "You did."

The contours of Hashirama's jawline were sharp and angular, the stone monument doing it little to no justice. Madara watched the curve of his neck, only to meet his gaze squarely as he looked down. When his mouth slid over Madara's, soft and firm, he let his eyes close. The arm around his shoulders shifted, Hashirama's broad hand cupping the back of his head, angling them to allow better access.

Breath ghosted over his lips, and that was the only sort of ghost haunting Madara's days anymore.

Hashirama didn't ask if he regretted the days of battles, arguments and broken blades that had nearly killed them both. Neither of them would have changed a thing.

* * *

**Notes: i love fluff. that's my only excuse. I tried to get whump and what came out was FLUFF. **

**In case you're wondering, the "ghost" in Madara's head is a person from the future. WHO is up to interpretation! **


End file.
